The bombs exploded at Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. Photo: AFP
Azovstal steelworks in the port city of Mariupol are the jewel of Vladimir Putin need to put in the pocket to show on May 9, when the Moscow Victory Day military parade (to the Nazis, during World War II) was held. For this reason, “bloody battle” was unleashed around the monstrous plant at this time in remove or annihilate to the last Ukrainian troops fighting there.
Russian soldiers violated the Ukrainian defenses around the steel plant on Thursday, as Moscow forces made a final push to fully control the port city of Mariupol and allow Putin to claim military victory days before the holiday of May 9.
Just fighters on the floor they blocked on the way from Moscow to declare full control over Mariupol.
bloody battle
A Ukrainian commander, Lt. Col. Denys Prokopenko, said they remove the “difficult and bloody battle” in the underground labyrinth of bunkers and fallout shelters of the plant, which the authorities estimated approximately 200 civilians they were still hiding with the last soldiers defending the city.
Hundreds of civilians, many of them employees of the multi-square-kilometer industrial complex, were hiding there when the Russians began destroying the port of Mariupol with bombs and missiles more than two months ago.
Mariupol, town of ruins. Photo: Reuters
71st day of war in pictures: Ukraine condemns attempt to boycott civilian evacuation
the steel mill it is impassable. It was built to withstand a nuclear attack. But inside, life was hell after two months, with at least 500 wounded soldiers in a situation of all sorts of shortcomings, in addition to lack of sanitation.
In recent days, Russia has allowed civilians to leave the steel mill and Mariupol (unbelievably, there are still thousands of people in the city) through slow and complex humanitarian corridors run by the UN and the Red Cross, but controlled by Moscow.
Come out alive, unlikely
But not all civilians were exposed. And certainly no soldiers.
And the prognosis that the last Ukrainian troops in Mariupol will come out alive in the steel mill is fierce.
Once the first evacuees left the plant, a bomb rained down fell into the iron mill, this Sunday.
The steel plant was besieged by Russian forces. And attention has turned to the fate of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who have been there for at least two months.
Counting the healthy and wounded in their ranks, it seemed their choice fight to the death or surrender in the hope of salvation under the terms of international humanitarian law. But experts say the troops are unlikely to have an easy way out and they may find it difficult to emerge as independent people or even life.
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